Dear Colleagues,

We sincerely wish the year 2015 brings peace, happiness and health to all my colleagues and their families. We are happy to accomplish the first issue of 2015.

There are 7 research articles in this issue. The first one is a morphometric study, analyzing the appropriate odontoid screw sizes for Turkish population whose odontoid sizes were determined with MR measurements. The second one analyzes the curvature severity and growth hormone level in patients with Scheuerman kyphosis. The third study compares the effectiveness of the kyphoplasty and vertebroplasty for providing the vertebra body height in osteoporotic spinal fractures. The other three studies are related to spinal trauma, the first analyzing the effectiveness of the short segment instrumentation for placing the pedicular screw in spinal fracture, the second one compares the spinal classification for 234 cases and the third one evaluates the pelvic fractures and spinal fractures. The last one is a study analyzing the survival of the sacral screw in patients administered lumbar degenerative spinal stenosis by posterior instrumentation. We believe that all those studies will quietly interest the readers.

There are also four case studies in this issue: the first one is the osteoid osteoma of the atlas case, which is seen quiet rarely, and it was sent by our Iranian colleagues from Tehran University. The second case study is a sacral giant-cell tumor and sent by our Indian colleagues from Kashmiri region of India. The third case study presents the migration of an intraspinal bullet into medusa and sent by our Indian colleagues from Rohtek region of India. In the last case study, a case who fell down from height and who had “Clay-shoveler’s fracture” was presented.

There are two reviews in this issue. The first one is a review presenting the studies about the tuberculosis, and the second one presents the genetic basis of degenerative disc disease and both of those are quiet comprehensive and informative reviews.

In this issue, in the “Frontiers of the Spinal Surgery” section, Prof. Dr. Tarık Yazar, who had great contributions to Turkish spinal surgery and to training of a number of spinal surgeons in Ankara University, and who is one of the 3 giant plane-trees of “Ankara Medicine” école, is presented. We wish him a healthy and peaceful long life and we present our love and respects to him.

The “Marmara Spinal Group Meetings”, which includes İstanbul and neighboring cities and which is conducted to increase the interests of especially assistants and new specialist on spinal surgery and to contribute to their trainings and to transfer the experiences of experienced colleagues and will be organized each month regularly by the regulatory board, and which Prof. Dr. Cüneyt Şar will perform the headship this year and Surgeon Yunus Atıcı performs the secretariat, will be continued. In October, the subject of “Treatment choices, techniques and problems in adult scoliosis” was discussed with the hosting of old TOD president Prof. Dr. Azmi Hamzaoğlu and with his own presentation. In November, with my hosting, the question “Did the Lenke classification change the adolescent idiopathic scoliosis?” was tried to be answered in Hisar Intercontinental Hospital. In this meeting, the previous TOD president, my dear friend Prof. Dr. Emre Acaroğlu asserted the answer “Yes, it changed” while Prof. Dr. Ufuk Talu asserted the answer “No, it did not change”. After the great presentations of both speakers, an interactive discussion was performed about the issue. 60 colleagues attended to each of first two meetings of 2014-2015 training term from İstanbul and neighboring cities. You can find the other meeting contents from the announcements section.

We respond to answer the STE questions that we publish in accordance with the request from TOTBİD TOTEK for recertification in this issue. The answers of the questions included in this issue should be sent to [email protected] or [email protected] addresses as also indicated in the page including the questions. The sent answers will be sent to the secretariat working relevantly in TOTBİD TOTEK by us.

We wish healthy, successful and peaceful days to Turkish Spinal Surgery family and we present our deepest respects.

Prof. Dr. İ. Teoman BENLİ
JTSS Editor